Rahaf Harfoush: Balancing Trust with Innovation

We are sharing with you this new post writed by our speaker Rahaf Harfoush This is a translated version of an article that was originally posted in French at Harvard Business Review France covering the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. You can read it here.   At Davos, one of the central themes in addition to climate change was the role of technology in business and society. The implications of using these new tools are broad and expansive, with everything from cybersecurity, privacy, and artificial intelligence to automation, re-skilling and the future of work.   As governments debate how to best regulate these technologies on a policy level, business leaders are grappling with a major strategic consideration: the role of AI ethics within their own organizations and how that applies to the tools they are using or creating. The “Decade of Trust”   In a panel entitled “Walking the Tech Tightrope: How to Balance Trust with Innovation,” the question of what responsibilities businesses have defining ethical technology practices was a main point of discussion. Specifically, how can organizations balance unlocking new market opportunities while also protecting society from the more harmful applications of these tools?   Read more: https://medium.com/rahafs-digital-culture-analysis/balancing-trust-with-innovation-b0d90b2afdf0

María Belón, the moment the tsunami appeared is as vivid as in The Impossible.

We share with you a post published in ‘Oprah Daily’ in which you can learn more about our speaker María Belón:   "(...) Miraculously, the family whose story is told in The Impossible all survived the disaster. Though the Bennet family in The Impossible is British, the real family that inspired the film is from Spain. María Belón, a physician, and her husband Enrique Álvarez were in Khao Lak, Thailand with their three sons, Lucas, Simón and Tomás when the tsunami struck. Here's a look back at their remarkable story, and where the family is now. (...)   Belón's account of the moment the tsunami appeared is nearly as vivid as the scene in The Impossible. “We started to hear a very horrible sound. I was looking around thinking maybe this is just in my mind. No one recognized the sound. It felt like the Earth was coming apart but everything looked perfect. I was facing the sea and saw a huge black wall. I didn’t think it was the sea. I thought it was a black wall coming to get us," she told The Mirror in 2017.   Afterwards, Belón was swept away and separated from her husband and sons, who were in the swimming pool. According to…

Dorie Clark: A Career Detour Doesn’t Have to Compromise Your Long-Term Goals

We share with you a interview published in ‘Harvard Business Review’ in which you can learn more about our speaker Dorie Clark:    "For almost every professional, there are times when your career path deviates from what you might have hoped — for instance, a layoff, reassignment, relocation, or the need to take time off for health issues or caregiving. The pandemic, of course, has compounded the situation, especially for working parents, who may be facing multiple stressors at once.   In the short term, the situation is clear: If you or your spouse has lost your job, you need to earn income. If in-person schooling isn’t an option, someone has to stay home with the kids and supervise virtual learning. And if you’re the primary caregiver to children or other family members, you need to ensure you have the flexibility to handle any situation at home that comes your way. (...)" Read More: https://hbr.org/2021/03/a-career-detour-doesnt-have-to-compromise-your-long-term-goals?ab=hero-main-image    

Peter Fisk: 7 Business Shifts

We are sharing with you this new post writed by our speaker Peter Fisk:    "How do we create a better business, and a better future?   Creating this better future requires change in how we think and behave, the way in which you design, manage and lead your business. The mindset shifts are profound, requiring leaders to let go of old behaviours and beliefs, and to embrace new paradigms and possibilities. There are 7 shifts to the future:   Aurora … Recode your future … from profit machine to enlightened progress Komorebi … Recode your growth … from uncertain survival to futuristic growth Transcendent … Recode your market … from marginal competition to market creating Ingenuity … Recode your innovation … From technology obsession to human ingenuity Ubuntu … Recode your organisation … From passive hierarchies to dynamic ecosystems Syzygy … Recode your transformation … From incremental change to sustained transformation Awestruck … Recode your leadership … From good managers to extraordinary leaders Together these 7 shifts begin to shape a better future for your business, delivered through the 49 codes. Shift 1 … Aurora … Recode your future How will you reinvent your business for a better future? From profit machine to enlightened progress Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, originating from the ancient Roman goddess of the dawn. In…

Chris Gardner: The Only Way is Up

We share with you a post published in ‘Entrepreneur’ in which you can learn more about our speaker Chris Gardner.    "In his twenties, and half-way through his years-long medical training, Christopher Paul Gardner was advised to rethink “that whole idea of becoming a doctor.” Ever since then, Gardner has been considering more lucrative career options. Today, however, he finds himself as the CEO of Happyness- in legal terms, that translates into “the founder and CEO of Christopher Gardner International Holdings.” Reflecting on that piece of advice he received all those years ago, and why he followed it several times in the decades that ensued, Gardner says, “I don’t believe that it is necessary to let go of the dream, but you might have to use different tactics. You also have to always be mindful of, ‘Is this what I want to do?’ Because only by doing something that you want to do, will you put your heart and soul into it. That’s what works for me.”   I had been worried that Gardner would be too tired for this interview- it had been a busy day for him at the 2019 Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival. He had delivered an hour-long talk to…

Antonio Nieto-Rodríguez: Projects – the greatest disruption of the 21st century!

We share with you a interview published in ‘Strefa’ in which you can learn more about our speaker Antonio Nieto-Rodríguez: "Antonio, thank you very much for accept­ing my invitation to the interview. You are the world’s leading champion in project management and strategy implementa­tion. You do a lot in promoting the pro­ject management skills around the world, especially within senior management to show it’s crucial to manage projects in the right way. Could you highlight the key moments, key steps in your career which led you to your present position?   It’s a pleasure to be here with PMI Poland which I have very good memories of when I was there a few years ago. I love what you are doing, your team, the volunteers, so thank you for the opportunity to share a bit about my views. To answer your ques­tion, the highlights of my career – they were failures and maybe that’s what made me just fight harder to get what I wanted or the message that I wanted to share. I think that one big point or step in my career was when I was working for a very large consulting company and they did not appreciate…

Javier Solana: Learning the Lessons of the Pandemic

We are sharing with you this new post writed by our speaker Javier Solana   "Among its many other effects, the COVID-19 crisis has intensified the pre-existing geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States. This tension has led many to warn of the “Thucydides trap,” a term coined by Harvard’s Graham T. Allison to refer to the heightened risk of conflict when an emerging power threatens to displace an established one. Allison’s theory takes its name from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ chronicle of the Peloponnesian War, in which Sparta defeated the rising city-state of Athens.   One important detail of this historical touchstone has passed largely unnoticed, however, even amid the ongoing pandemic: the determining factor in Sparta’s victory was a plague that killed about one-third of Athens’s population, including Pericles, the city’s leader.   Yale’s Frank M. Snowden argues that while military and political events may prevail in public memory, pandemics have played a preponderant role in great historical changes. For example, it was typhus that cut short Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia, while the 1918-19 flu is thought to have diminished US President Woodrow Wilson’s abilities during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations. (...)" Read More: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid19-fairer-social-contracts-greater-global-cooperation-by-javier-solana-2020-05

Mikhail Gorbachev: When the Pandemic Is Over, the World Must Come Together

We share with you a post published in ‘Time’ in which you can learn more about our speaker Mikhail Gorbachev:  "During the first months of this year, we have seen once again how fragile is our global world, how great the danger of sliding into chaos. The COVID-19 pandemic is facing all countries with a common threat, and no country can cope with it alone.   The immediate challenge today is to defeat this new, vicious enemy. But even today, we need to start thinking about life after it retreats.   Many are now saying the world will never be the same. But what will it be like? That depends on what lessons will be learned.   I recall how in the mid-1980s, we addressed the nuclear threat. The breakthrough came when we understood that it is our common enemy, a threat to all of us. The leaders of the Soviet Union and the U.S. declared that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Then came Reykjavik and the first treaties eliminating nuclear weapons. But even though by now 85% of those arsenals have been destroyed, the threat is still there.   Yet other global challenges remain and have even become…

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Pandemic Isn’t a Black Swan but a Portent of a More Fragile Global System

We share with you a post published in ‘The New Yorker’ in which you can learn more about our speaker Nassim Nicholas Taleb:  "Nassim Nicholas Taleb is “irritated,” he told Bloomberg Television on March 31st, whenever the coronavirus pandemic is referred to as a “black swan,” the term he coined for an unpredictable, rare, catastrophic event, in his best-selling 2007 book of that title. “The Black Swan” was meant to explain why, in a networked world, we need to change business practices and social norms—not, as he recently told me, to provide “a cliché for any bad thing that surprises us.” Besides, the pandemic was wholly predictable—he, like Bill Gates, Laurie Garrett, and others, had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one. “We issued our warning that, effectively, you should kill it in the egg,” Taleb told Bloomberg. Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.” The warning that he referred to appeared in a January 26th paper that he co-authored with Joseph Norman and Yaneer Bar-Yam, when the virus was still mainly confined to China. The paper cautions that, owing to “increased connectivity,” the spread will be “nonlinear”—two key contributors to…

Francesc Miralles: Your ikigai may change over time, but having a purpose is key

We share with you a post published in ‘Deccan Chronicle’ in which you can learn more about our speaker Francesc Miralles: "Self improvement books on Japanese concepts are having a bit of a moment and chief among them is the bestseller Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life. Centering the book in Okinawa, Japan, authors Héctor García and Francesc Miralles focus on the ways of the residents of this island known for longevity, with more centenarians than anywhere in the world.   How do they live this long? The authors, who spent a few years examining the Okinawan lifestyle – including their diet and level of activity – argue one of the reasons is having a clearly defined ikigai, or “the happiness of always being busy”, of having a passionate life purpose. Originally written in Spanish, the book has been widely translated across the world, including into regional Indian languages. Before taking the stage at the Kerala Literature Festival in Calicut last weekend to discuss the book, Francesc Miralles sat down with me to talk about the ideas that drove Ikigai. Edited excerpts:   What got you and Héctor García interested in writing Ikigai?   I live in Barcelona, and Hector…